Chaos and Cupcakes

We have a strict no-shoes in our house policy. I have had various little signs up asking visitors to remove their shoes, the cutest and most current being a little sign my mom just brought me back from Hawaii. I also keep baby wipes in our mudroom and by our back door and we wipe our bare feet when we enter our home during the summer. We wear flip flops a lot during the hot months and feet can get dirty and germy wearing these so we clean them up before we come in. I know that not everyone is a germ-hating clean freak like Jared and I. I was raised in a “no shoes in the home” family by a “no dirty feet” mom so to me this is just second nature. Jared is a bare feet kind of guy who appreciates having a very clean home so to him it is second nature. I saw this today and this is exactly why we don’t wear shoes into our home:

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Consumer/story?id=5177409&page=1

Note: I edited this post because after I went back and read it later, it seemed like I am a total freak germaphobe. Well, the truth is I am a total freak germaphobe. But I needed to turn down the freak a bit! So if you get this in an RSS feed and read the first post- hey, don’t be afraid to come over to my house. After all, I own a great steam cleaner. Anyway, if you read the article it talks about etiquette when asking people to remove their shoes. I do keep clean socks in a basket by my door for those who aren’t comfortable barefoot (it’s what Martha Stewart does, too). But bottom line is my job is to keep my kids safe and healthy. Did you read about the bacteria that can cause stomach, eye, and lung infections? Gross! I just read some interesting things about people removing their shoes in others’ homes and there definitely are some cultural trends to it. For instance, I read that in Canada and Hawaii you wouldn’t think twice about taking your shoes off at the door; it’s just what everybody does there. In our new neighborhood, everyone takes their shoes off in their homes and their neighbors’ homes. That probably has more to do with the fact that everyone wants to keep their new carpets nice. When Jared and I went to the Parade of Homes you had to put on booties before you could go into any of the homes. Great idea! Well, as they say in Hawaii, “Mahalo for removing your slippahs!”

Tonight I had one of those horrible, frightening parent moments that you hope to never have.

Olivia was feeling better today and wanted to go to her dance class. So I send the kids out to the garage to put their shoes on. I grab the baby, hit the button to open the garage door, and get my shoes out of the shoe organizer. As I am looking down to slide my shoes on my feet, I hear Sawyer (my 2 year old) scream at the top of his lungs. My heart leaps in my throat at the sound and I look over towards the opening garage door and see him hanging onto it with both arms as it nears the top. He must have grabbed it as it was opening. I rush towards him, of course still holding the baby, but I know that I won’t make it before it reaches the top. I am screaming and the kids are all screaming. I’m wondering in my mind if it would be better for him to hang on and have his hands crushed as the door meets the garage wall or for him to let go and break bones and smash his head on the concrete, so I don’t know whether to tell him to let go or not. Just as I am almost to him (of course this all happens in mere seconds but it feels like that cliched eternity) and just as the door is a few inches from the top, he lets go and falls to the ground, shrieking in fear. I know this might sound odd to some, but I KNOW angels cushioned his fall. He is just fine. Not a bump on him and he hit his head so hard. I am also completely shocked that this is the child who has nursemaid’s elbow so bad that his left arm comes out of socket on a monthly basis and yet his arm remained in socket the whole way up. He was shaken up for a few minutes but then was fine. I won’t be surprised to see bruises all over his body in the morning, though. I am still shaken up and will probably see the whole awful episode in my head every time I close my eyes to try and fall asleep tonight.

Updated: Jared just got home and informed me that my fears are a bit irrational. He had me go and look at the garage door while it was up and there is a big gap between the door and the wall so Sawyer’s fingers wouldn’t have gotten crushed. I told him from where I was I couldn’t tell and I have never inspected the area between the door and wall before. Also, yes I know that an 8 foot fall likely wouldn’t kill a 2 year old but IT WAS STILL SCARY!! I am allowed to be irrational and melodramatic because I am a Momma Bear!

It must not be appendicitis as right after I finished writing the previous post and was deciding whether or not to call someone to stay with the kids and go to the ER, Olivia walked into my bedroom burning up with a fever and clutching her stomach. Sawyer had actually been running a fever Saturday night and Sunday with no other apparent symptoms other than being sleepy and irritable so I had thought maybe he had an ear infection. However, by Monday he was feeling just fine. Maybe he had this bug or whatever it is, too. Anyway, I’ve got a call in to the doctor’s office (although my doctor is on vacation this week) to see if there is some odd bug that manifests with just a fever and horrible stomachache and what I need to do about it. As a precaution, I kept Andrew home from school today in case he is the next one to fall ill with this and we will not be going to the 3 baseball games we have tonight. It drives me crazy when people send their germy kids to school and church or other things and then my kids end up getting sick, as well. Keep your germs at home!

Tonight I will likely spend the night awake worrying about my oldest baby.  Taylor is running a high fever and has pain in his stomach.  I don’t think he has appendicitis as he can still raise his legs to his stomach but the worry is still there in the back of my mind that maybe I should take him to the ER just in case.  If Jared was here, I would have taken Taylor in already but without Jared here I am left in the position of having to call someone in the middle of the night to come stay with the other kids.  So I am giving it a bit of time to see if maybe it is the start of a stomach bug.  However, I will still spend the night up hovering over him (I had him sleep in my bed so I could keep an eye on him all night) and making sure he is still breathing fine and checking his temperature over and over to make sure it doesn’t go super high.

I have always been a worrier, especially when it comes to my children.  I am likely to check on my baby’s breathing a hundred times a night.  It takes me forever to fall asleep every night because all the worries I have about my children’s health, their lives, my parenting skills, etc., keep me up.

After Andrew was born, I basically didn’t sleep for the 6 weeks that he was in the NICU.  I had to get up every 3 hours to pump and after I would pump I would lay in bed worrying about him, so then I would call the NICU for reassurance.  By the time I would finally fall asleep, it was time to get up and pump again.  And that cycle just went on and on for 6 long weeks that were so full of ups and downs.  After Andrew came home from the NICU, he was on an apnea monitor as he failed the apnea discharge test.  Instead of the monitor reassuring me that Andrew was breathing fine, I worried even more.  I was so afraid that I would sleep too deeply to hear the monitor go off.

When Olivia was a baby, she was a tummy sleeper.  I was so afraid of her doing this with the SIDS risk that I wouldn’t let her sleep the way she wanted to.  Finally, in desperation to get some sleep, I let her sleep on her tummy but only after I bought an Angel Care monitor to put under her crib mattress.  The monitor has a parent’s receiver that goes off if the baby hasn’t taken a breath in 30 seconds.

After Parker’s traumatic birth and his NICU stay, I went through the same pump/worry cycle that I went through with Andrew.  After he came home, I was so worried about him that I refused to put him in the bassinet to sleep (I also did this with Sawyer after his scary birth).  I wanted him right next to me so that I could make sure he was fine all through the night.  I ended up taking the bassinet down as I had no intention of him sleeping in it.  It wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago after Parker turned 6 months old, that I decided we finally needed to set up the crib for him (and even at that I had Jared put it right next to my side of the bed).  However, tonight is the first time that he is actually sleeping in it during the night and that is because I don’t want him in the same bed as Taylor in case Taylor is contagious.  As I have written before, many nights since Parker was born I have relived the horror of his birth in my head wondering how in the world I could have gone on if Parker hadn’t survived.

This brings me to tonight.

Laying here worrying about my sweet Taylor, my first baby, made me think of those who lose a child or spouse or parent.  When my mom was here earlier tonight, somehow we started talking about when she lost her parents.  She was 35 when she lost her dad and 39 when she lost her mom.  At the time, to me as a young person that didn’t seem so young to me.  Now, at the age of 29, that is scary to me.  I can’t imagine not having my mom to call up when I have problems, frustrations, or good news.  Whenever I hear of someone losing a child or a spouse I think, “How do they survive that?  How do they deal with that?”  I don’t think I am a strong enough person for that.  And I hope I never have to find out.

My grandparents, my mom’s mom and dad, lost their son Larry when he was, I believe, just 20 years old.  His helicopter was shot down in the Vietnam War.  I cannot imagine what my grandparents felt hearing that news.  Yes, he was gone to war and there is always, I’m sure, the thought in the back of your mind of what could and does happen in war.  But you hope and pray that it won’t happen to your loved one.  And I’m sure the shock and pain of hearing that news is still as poignant as in any other instance.

So tonight I was thinking of my grandma.  She was an incredibly strong woman.  She dealt with so many hard things in her life.  She had to deal with the loss of her son, the loss of her parents, breast cancer, and my grandpa’s diagnosis of Lou Gehrig’s disease and the subsequent loss of him.   Yet through all this, she remained a compassionate, spiritually strong role model to all those around her.  So many people loved and admired her.  I wish she were here today so I could tell her how much I admire her strength and fortitude.  She truly endured to the end.  I didn’t tell her or show her enough when she was with us, but I love my grandma and I miss her.   I wish my children could know her.

Even though it is the middle of the night, I am going to go kiss my children again and whisper “I love you” in their ears.  My children and my husband, along with the gospel, are the most precious gifts I have.  Without them, I am nothing.  They bring meaning and joy indescribable to my life.

Hold your loved ones close.  Tell them and show them that you love them.

Ever notice how I blog a lot more when Jared is out of town?  Hmm, what does that say about either 1) how much I must bother him during the day talking to him as when he is not here I am bored, or 2) how much more productive I am when he is here as when he is not I obviously have nothing better to do than blog silly things?

Hopefully my mom will come over later and ease my boredom.  And, ok yes, bringing some chocolate-covered macadamia nuts fresh from Hawaii would be great, as well.

I loaded the kids up into the car and went to pick Cameron up from school this morning.  Obviously our kids are quite unused to being in the car without Daddy AND Mommy as Sawyer immediately asked upon pulling out of the driveway, “Where’s Dada?”  I said, “He’s in Texas.”  Olivia exclaimed, “Oh!  My cousin Shelby who’s a baby lives in Texas!”  So she thinks Daddy went to visit Shelby without the rest of us and she is not happy about it.

This prompting a bit of musing in this bored head of mine on the great state of Texas.  That state is so huge.  We have 3 different family members (and their families) in that state, so you’d think, “Yeah, that would be a great place to go.  You could visit with all those different family members.”  Alas, no.  Jared is in the middle of Texas in the city of Austin.  Aidan and Jeremy are a bit over 3 hours to the northeast of Austin in Dallas.  Amanda is a whopping 5 1/2 hours northwest of Austin in Midland.  Ryan and Sandra are an additional 2 1/2 hours west of Midland in El Paso.  That’s one enormous state.  So Jared will be stuck in Austin all by his lonesome.  Well, except for the, like, 20 Alfrescans that will be with him.  Eating at the Salt Lick.  Without kids.  And diapers.  Talking about geek stuff.  Lucky guy.

So back to the Olivia story.  After she made the connection of Jared being in Texas and Shelby living in Texas, Sawyer chimed in, “Where’s Shelby?  I love Shelby!”  I relayed this story to my mom and then expressed my desire for my family to move to Utah.  NOW.  I would love for my kids to have their cousins to play with and grow up with.  It makes me so sad that we don’t get to see them very often.  I used to love how in Louisiana we had Sunday dinner together every week.  Back then my kids were the only kids there.  But how much fun would it be now to have a big gaggle of kids playing together while the adults play baseball (the highly addictive card game)?  In other words, McGrath family members, I’m begging you to move here!  I promise there won’t be any more cougars loose in the street!

I took Taylor to the ENT today and, of course, my sidekick Parker came with us. On the way home I bought Taylor some ice cream to make up for the fact that he had just had a speculum stuck up his nostrils. When Parker observed Taylor sitting next to him in the car eating ice cream he was pretty unhappy. Parker does not like for other people to eat and not share with him. So I got his Cheerios out of the diaper bag and instructed Taylor to feed them to Parker one at a time. When Parker was finished with one he would let out an impatient little squawk meaning, “Thank you, sir. May I have another?” NOW. So I would say, “Taylor, Taylor! Give him another!” Taylor, after one too many interruptions of his ice cream eating, finally exclaimed, “Hello?! It’s not like he’s a member of the royal family!”

The result of the ENT appointment: Taylor will be getting his tonsils and adenoids out on July 17th. The doctor said that size of tonsils are rated on a scale of 1-4 with 1 being small to normal and 4 being humongous. Taylor’s tonsils are 3 1/2 and the doctor said they need to come right out. I will be having my hysterectomy 9 days earlier so we are looking at a fun filled few weeks!

It just isn’t summer until we have spent a hot but lovely day doing this…

Taylor, just like his mom and dad, is a voracious reader.  He can read a 200 page chapter book from the young adult section in just a few hours.  Tonight he asked me to pick some books off our shelves for him to read as he just finished a huge stack from the library.  We were going to go the library today to get more books but I didn’t feel like taking the kids out in the rain.  So I gave him a stack of books from our bookshelf for him to read.  After he finishes each one, to keep his writing skills fresh over the summer, he has to write a one page summary for me.  I tried to get a nice eclectic selection for him:

Star Wars:  Assault at Selonia

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing

Superfudge

Ralph S. Mouse

Island of the Blue Dolphins

Little House in the Big Woods

Animal Farm

The Swiss Family  Robinson

Summer Stargazing:  A Practical Guide for Recreational Astronomers

He requested King Arthur as well and said, “I want to learn more about the knights of the round table.”

Olivia’s dresser and shelf before (I didn’t think to snap a before picture so here is one I already had):

After:

Tidbits from the boys from the last few days:

Andrew: “I think I will make a book about toenails.”

Taylor: “Stop it or I will purge you, Andrew!”

Cameron: “Whoa, I saw that one coming!”